#54 million VAT fraud gang is jailed

A MIDLANDS-based gang behind a #54 million VAT fraud has been given jail sentences totalling nearly 40 years.

A MIDLANDS-based gang behind a #54 million VAT fraud has been given jail sentences totalling nearly 40 years.

The sentencing at Worcester Crown Court followed a six-year investigation codenamed Operation Maypole by HM Revenue & Customs and two separate criminal trials.

Ringleader Emmanuel Hening, a Luxembourg-based businessman was found guilty on three counts of 'missing trader' fraud at Worcester Crown Court, along with other members of the eight-strong gang, bringing the total jail sentences for the gang to 38-and-a-half years.

Hening, 33, was sentenced to 15 years on three counts to run concurrently the longest ever sentence for this kind of crime imposed in the UK.

He was also disqualified from being a company director for 15 years, the maximum period of disqualification which may be imposed.

Jaswant Ray Kanda, 42, of Beech Gate, Little Aston, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years on three counts to run concurrently.

He was also disqualified from being a company director for eight years.

Kanda was a director of Waves International Ltd, based at Bradford Court, Bradford Street, Birmingham.

Abid Mukhtar, 35, of Newport, Gwent, was sentenced on one count to 12 months, suspended for 12 months.

The court heard the multi-million pound fraud centred on the mobile phone industry.

Investigations by HMRC began in 2000 and involved breaking the audit trail of businesses based in the UK, Luxembourg and France through a company called Handycom SA operated by Hening.

Hening claimed on invoices to be importing large numbers of European specification mobile phones into Britain VAT free by various companies set up by Hening.

He then sold the phones on paper charging VAT that was never paid.

These companies then went 'missing'. The phones were sold to 'buffer' traders before being exported back to Hening.

Each company made an agreed profit margin on the phones.

The operators of the 'buffer' companies were found guilty by unanimous verdicts of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue last June after a nine-week trial at Worcester Crown Court and were also sentenced last month.

The same sentence was passed to Brian John Meehan, 54, of Blackburn, Lancashire, and Gerard Martin McAllister, 32, also of Blackburn, Lancashire, who were directors of Bridge GSM Ltd of Blackburn.

Angela Antoinette Senatore, 54, of Hodnet Grove, Birmingham, pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to cheat the public revenue and is awaiting sentencing.

She was proprietor of A Star Trading, Hagley Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham.

Chris Harrison, Deputy Director, Investigation for HMRC said: "This was not some kind of victimless crime, but organised fraud on a massive scale perpetrated by criminals all bent on making fast and easy profits at the expense of the British taxpayer."